How can indexing help to manage SharePoint's List View Threshold?

This article applies to:
7.x Briefcase for Windows
6.x Briefcase for Windows, Contributor Pro

List View Threshold:

SharePoint has a List View Threshold (LVT) of 5,000 items. The purpose of this threshold is to ensure SharePoint servers can run reliably and not get overwhelmed, so performance is not affected.  This threshold is not configurable within Colligo products.

If you exceed this threshold, the following issues can occur:

• If you are drilling down into a folder hierarchy in your SharePoint site or in your Outlook folder tree, the message List View Threshold Exceeded displays, and any subsequent subfolders do not display.
• If you are uploading an item to SharePoint, the message List View Threshold Exceeded displays and the upload fails.
• You see errors and warning messages in the Colligo log file relating to List View Threshold, such as The attempted operation is prohibited because it exceeds the list view threshold enforced by the administrator.

NOTE: Microsoft has published information on managing large lists and libraries that can be found here.

Indexing:

In your document library, you can index the two columns Modified and Content Type to significantly cut down on the amount of time it takes SharePoint to handle queries and avoid exceeding the List View Threshold.

To index a column:

1. In your document library, select the Library Tools > Library ribbon and click the Library Settings icon.
   

   

2. In the Columns section, click Indexed Columns.
   

   

3. The Indexed Columns window displays.
4. Click Create a new index. The Edit Index window displays:

   

5. In the Primary Column section, choose the property Modified from the drop-down menu.
6. Click Create.

NOTE: As an administrator, you have the option to set the List View Threshold to a higher value. This may be a solution as long as there is not heavy traffic on the SharePoint server. However, this is not possible for SharePoint Online in Office 365.